Meisha Shofner

Meisha Shofner

Meisha Shofner

Professor, School of Materials Science and Engineering

Meisha L. Shofner is a professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, joining the faculty following post-doctoral training at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and her Ph.D. in Materials Science from Rice University. Prior to beginning graduate school, she was employed as a design engineer at FMC in the Subsea Engineering Division, working at two plant locations (Houston, Texas and the Republic of Singapore), and she is a registered Professional Engineer in Georgia.

Shofner’s research area is processing-structure-property relationships of polymers and composites. Specifically, she designs processing strategies to attain hierarchical structures in these materials to improve properties and has discovered scalable processing methods to produce auxetic structures and tensegrity-inspired structures. Additionally, she works with bioderived materials to produce composites with reduced environmental impact.  

meisha.shofner@mse.gatech.edu

404.385.7216

Office Location:
MRDC 4409

Shofner Lab

  • MSE Profile Page
  • Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Advanced Composites
    • Materials & Manufacturing
    • Materials and Nanotechnology
    • Renewable Energy
    Additional Research:
    Biomolecular-Solids; Biomaterials; Composites; Polymers; Nanomaterials; Biofuels; Structure-property relationships in polymer nanocomposite materials; producing structural hierarchy in these materials for structural and functional applications.

    IRI Connections:

    Ari Glezer

    Ari Glezer

    Ari Glezer

    George W. Woodruff Chair in Thermal Systems and Professor
    Chair, Thermal Systems

    Dr. Glezer began at Tech in 1992 as an Associate Professor. He was named to the Woodruff Chair in Thermal Systems in 2002. Prior, he was an Assistant and Associate Professor at the University of Arizona.

    ari.glezer@me.gatech.edu

    404.894.3266

    Office Location:
    Love Building, Room 239

    Website

  • Fluid Mechanics Research Laboratory
  • University, College, and School/Department
    Research Focus Areas:
    • Renewable Energy
    Additional Research:
    Wind; Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer; Combustion; and Energy Systems; Fluid mechanics; turbulent shear flows; flow control; diagnostics

    IRI Connections:

    Aaron Stebner

    Aaron Stebner

    Aaron Stebner

    Associate Professor, School of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering

    Aarn Stebner works at the intersection of manufacturing, machine learning, materials, and mechanics. He joined the Georgia Tech faculty as an associate professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering in 2020.

    Previously, he was the Rowlinson Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at the Colorado School of Mines (2013 – 2020), a postdoctoral scholar at the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories of the California Institute of Technology (2012 – 2013), a Lecturer in the Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University (2009 – 2012), a Research Scientist at Telezygology Inc. establishing manufacturing and “internet of things” technologies for shape memory alloy-secured latching devices (2008-2009), a Research Fellow at the NASA Glenn Research Center developing smart materials technologies for morphing aircraft structures (2006 – 2008), and a Mechanical Engineer at the Electric Device Corporation in Canfield, OH developing manufacturing and automation technologies for the circuit breaker industry (1995 – 2000).

    aaron.stebner@gatech.edu

    404.894.5167

    MSE Profile Page

  • Stebner Lab
  • Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Additive manufacturing
    • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
    • Energy
    • Materials & Manufacturing
    • Materials and Nanotechnology
    • Nanomaterials
    • Sustainable Manufacturing

    IRI Connections:

    Richard Fujimoto

    Richard Fujimoto

    Richard Fujimoto

    Regents' Professor Emeritus

    Richard Fujimoto is a Regents’ Professor, Emeritus in the School of Computational Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received the Ph.D. degree from the University of California-Berkeley in 1983 in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. He also received an M.S. degree from the same institution as well as two B.S. degrees from the University of Illinois-Urbana. 

    Fujimoto is a pioneer in the parallel and distributed discrete event simulation field. Discrete event simulation is widely used in areas such as telecommunications, transportation, manufacturing, and defense, among others. His work developed fundamental understandings of synchronization algorithms that are needed to ensure the correct execution of discrete event simulation programs on high performance computing (HPC) platforms. His team developed many new algorithms and computational techniques to accelerate the execution of discrete event simulations and developed software realizations that impacted several application domains. For example, his Georgia Tech Time Warp software was deployed by MITRE Corp. to create online fast-time simulations of commercial air traffic to help reduce delays in the U.S. National Airspace. An active researcher in this field since 1985, he authored or co-authored three books and hundreds of technical papers including seven that were cited for “best paper” awards or other recognitions. His research included several projects with Georgia Tech faculty in telecommunications, transportation, sustainability, and materials leading to numerous publications co-authored with faculty across campus.

    richard.fuijmoto@cc.gatech.edu

    404.894.5615

    Office Location:
    Coda Building, 1313

    Computing Profile

  • Website
  • Research Focus Areas:
    • Algorithms & Optimizations
    • Big Data
    • High Performance Computing
    • Infrastructure Ecology
    Additional Research:
    discrete-event simulation programs on parallel and distributed computing platforms

    IRI Connections:

    Jianjun Shi

    Jianjun Shi

    Jianjun Shi

    Carolyn J. Stewart Chair and Professor

    Dr. Jianjun Shi is the Carolyn J. Stewart Chair and Professor in H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, with joint appointment in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology. Prior to joining Georgia Tech in 2008, he was the G. Lawton and Louise G. Johnson Professor of Engineering at the University of Michigan. He received his B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Beijing Institute of Technology in 1984 and 1987, and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1992. Dr. Shi is a pioneer in the development and application of data fusion for quality improvements. His methodologies integrate system informatics, advanced statistics, and control theory for the design and operational improvements of manufacturing and service systems by fusing engineering systems models with data science methods. He has produced 40 Ph.D. graduates, 27 of which have joined IE department as faculty members. Among them, 7 have received NSF CAREER Awards and one has received the NSF PECASE award. He has published one book and more than 180 papers. He has served as PI and co-PI for projects totaling more than 25 million dollars, which were funded by National Science Foundation, NIST Advanced Technology Program, Department of Energy, General Motors, Daimler-Chrysler, Ford, Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Honeywell, Pfizer, Samsung, and various other industrial companies and funding agencies. The technologies developed in Dr. Shi’s research group have been widely implemented in various production systems with significant economic impacts. 

    Dr. Shi is the founding chair of the Quality, Statistics and Reliability (QSR) Subdivision at the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS). He has served as the Editor-in-Chief of the IISE Transactions (2017-2020), the flagship journal of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers. He also served as the Focus Issue Editor of IISE Transactions on Quality and Reliability Engineering (2007-2017), editor of Journal of System Science and Complexity, and advisory editor of Journal of Quality Technology and Quantitative Management (QTQM). He is a Fellow of American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME), a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering (IISE), a Fellow of Institute of Operations Research and the Management Science (INFORMS), a Fellow of Society of Manufacturing Engineering (SME), an Academician of the International Academy for Quality, and a member of National Academy of Engineering (NAE) of the USA. 

    Dr. Shi received various awards for his research and teaching, including the George Box Medal (2022), ASQ Walter Shewhart Medal (2021), The S. M. Wu Research Implementation Award (2021), ASQ Brumbaugh Award (2019), The Horace Pops Medal Award (2018), IISE David F. Baker Distinguished Research Award (2016), the IIE Albert G. Holzman Distinguished Educator Award (2011), Forging Achievement Award from Forging Industry Educational and Research Foundation (2007), Monroe-Brown Foundation Research Excellence Award (2007), the 1938E Award (1998) at The University of Michigan, and NSF CAREER Award (1996).

    jshi33@isye.gatech.edu

    404.385.3488

    Office Location:
    ISyE Main Building, Room 109

    Website

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Advanced Manufacturing
    • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
    • Factory Information Systems
    • System Informatics and Control
    Additional Research:
    System informatics and control

    IRI Connections:

    Yan Wang

    Yan Wang

    Yan Wang

    Professor, Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

    Wang's research is in the areas of design, manufacturing, and Integrated computational materials engineering. He is interested in computer-aided design, geometric modeling and processing, computer-aided manufacturing, multiscale simulation, and uncertainty quantification.

    Currently, Wang studies integrated product-materials design and manufacturing process design, where process-structure-property relationships are established with physics-based data-driven approaches for design optimization. The Multiscale Systems Engineering research group led by him develops new methodologies and computational schemes to solve the technical challenges of high dimensionality, high complexity, and uncertainty associated with product, process, and systems design at multiple length and time scales.

    Computational design tools for multiscale systems with sizes ranging from nanometers to kilometers will be indispensable for engineers' daily work in the near future. The research mission of the Multiscale Systems Engineering group is to create new modeling and simulation mechanisms and tools with underlying scientific rigor that are suitable for multiscale systems engineering for better and faster product innovation. Our education mission is to train engineers of the future to gain necessary knowledge as well as analytical, computational, communication, and self-learning skills for future work in a collaborative environment as knowledge creators and integrators. 

    yan.wang@me.gatech.edu

    404.894.4714

    Office Location:
    Callaway 472

    ME Profile Page

    Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Advanced Composites
    • Advanced Manufacturing
    • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
    • Computational Materials Science
    Additional Research:
    Computer-aided engineering and design and manufacturing, modeling and simulation, nanoscale cad/cam/cae, product lifecycle management, applied algorithms, uncertainty modeling, multiscale modeling, materials design

    IRI Connections:

    Steve French

    Steve French

    Steve French

    Professor
    John Portman Dean's Chair

    Steven P. French is professor of City and Regional Planning at Georgia Institute of Technology. He joined Georgia Tech in 1992 as the director of the City Planning program and served in that position until August 1999. He was the director of the Center for Geographic Information Systems from 1997 through 2011. He served as associate dean for research for the College of Architecture (now the College of Design) from July 2009 through June 2013 and dean of the College of Design from July 2013-June 2021.

    French’s teaching and research activities focus on sustainable urban development, land use planning, GIS applications, and natural hazard risk assessment. In addition to his administrative assignments, Professor French has regularly taught graduate courses in land use, planning, and GIS. He has graduated six Ph.D. students and advised more than 50 Masters students in City and Regional Planning. He has also served on numerous dissertation committees in Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Public Policy.

    Over the past twenty-five years, French has been the principal investigator or co-principal investigator on more than seventy research projects. He has participated in a number of National Science Foundation projects dealing with flood and earthquake hazards and was the Social Science Thrust Leader for the Mid-America Earthquake Center, an NSF Engineering Research Center. He has extensive experience in building and managing multidisciplinary teams of social scientists, architects, engineers, and scientists. French is the author or co-author of more than 25 refereed journal articles and four books. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of the American Planning Association, Journal of Planning Education and Research, Journal of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association and Earthquake Spectra.

    French holds a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before coming to Georgia Tech, he taught for ten years at California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo. In 1987-88, he served as the visiting professor of resources planning in the Civil Engineering Department at Stanford University. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners and an associate member of the American Institute of Architects.

    steve.french@coa.gatech.edu

    404.894.3880

    Office Location:
    245 Fourth Street, N.W.

    Website

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Energy Infrastructure
    • Infrastructure Ecology

    IRI Connections:

    Beril Toktay

    Beril Toktay

    Beril Toktay

    Interim Executive Director, Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems
    Professor of Operations Management and Brady Family Chair
    Faculty Director, Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business

    Beril Toktay is Professor of Operations Management, Brady Family Chairholder. Her primary research areas are sustainable operations and supply chain management. Professor Toktay's research has been funded by several National Science Foundation grants and has received distinctions such as the 2010 Brady Family Award for Faculty Research Excellence and the MSOM Society's 2015 Management Science Best Paper in Operations Management Award. Her research articles have appeared in Management Science, M&SOM, Operations Research, Production and Operations Management and Industrial Ecology. She became a Distinguished Fellow of the MSOM Society in 2017.

    Professor Toktay has taught Supply Chain Management courses at the PhD, MBA, and Executive Education levels as well as Operations Management and Operations Research courses at the PhD level. She has developed cases and pedagogical material for MBA and Executive Education audiences and co-curricular educational initiatives at the undergraduate level. She currently teaches Business Strategies for Sustainability in MBA and Executive Education programs. She's a recipient of the 2016 Ernest Scheller Jr. Award for Service Excellence and the Georgia Tech 2015 Women of Distinction Award.

    Professor Toktay served as Associate Editor for M&SOM (2007-2018), POM (2009-2013), and Management Science (2011-2017), and Area Editor (Environment, Energy and Sustainability) for Operations Research (2012-2018). She co-edited the M&SOM Special Issue on the Environment. She was the President of the MSOM Society and VP of Finance of the POM Society. At Georgia Tech, she serves as the Scheller College of Business ADVANCE Professor, a role that is focused on supporting the advancement of women and underrepresented minorities in academia. She is the founding Faculty Director of the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business and the co-architect and Executive Co-Director of Georgia Tech's Serve.Learn.Sustain Quality Enhancement Plan.

    beril.toktay@scheller.gatech.edu

    404.385.0104

    Office Location:
    800 West Peachtree Street, N.W., Room 4426

    Website

    University, College, and School/Department
    Research Focus Areas:
    • Logistics
    • Policy & Economics
    • Supply Chain
    Additional Research:
    Sustainable operations; closed-loop supply chains; supply chain management; Strategic Planning

    IRI Connections:

    Tequila A.L. Harris

    Tequila A.L. Harris

    Tequila A.L. Harris

    Professor, Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering
    Director, Polymer Thin Film Processing (PTFP) Group
    SEI Lead: Energy & Manufacturing

    Tequila A. L. Harris is a Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, and is the director of the Polymer Thin Film Processing Laboratory (tharris@gatech.edu). Her research focuses on investigating the fundamental science associated with manufacture of polymer thin films from fluids (e.g., solutions, dispersions, slurries, etc.) as they are coated onto permeable or impermeable surfaces to make components or devices. She explores the connectivity between thin film functionality, based on their manufacture or structure, and their life expectancy, to elucidate mechanisms by which performance or durability can be predicted. In addition to conducting computational analysis, developing analytical models and running experiments, Harris also develops new manufacturing technologies to fabricate thin films, in wide area or discrete patterns. Target applications are well-suited for a variety of industries including food, energy, electronic, and environmental systems to name a few. In conjunction with her research activities, she is committed to the education, mentoring, and advisement of students towards scholarly achievements. She has published over fifty peer-reviewed articles. Harris has several awards including the National Science Foundation's young investigator CAREER Award and the Lockheed Inspirational Young Faculty Award.

    tequila.harris@me.gatech.edu

    404.385.6335

    Office Location:
    MARC 436

    Departmental Bio

  • Polymer Thin Film Processing (PTFP) Group
  • Research Focus Areas:
    • Advanced Materials Additive Manufacturing
    • Delivery & Storage
    • Electronic Materials
    • Energy
    • Flexible Electronics
    Additional Research:
    Additive/Advanced Manufacturing; Flexible Electronics; Polymers; micro and nanomechanics; Thin Films; Electronics; Energy Storage; Thermal Systems; Manufacturing and Fluid Mechanics; Polymer processing; mechanical system design; fluid flow; mechanical and physical property characterization of thin film

    IRI Connections:

    Thomas Kurfess

    Thomas Kurfess

    Thomas Kurfess

    Executive Director, Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute
    Professor; HUSCO/Ramirez Distinguished Chair in Fluid Power and Motion Control

    Professor Kurfess began his academic career at Carnegie Mellon University where he rose to the rank of Associate Professor. In 1994, he moved to the Georgia Institute of Technology where he rose to the rank of Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. In 2005, he was named Professor and BMW Chair of Manufacturing in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Clemson University’s International Center for Automotive Research. In 2012, he returned to Georgia Tech as a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the HUSCO/Ramirez Distinguished Chair in Fluid Power and Motion Control.

    During 2012-2013, Dr. Kurfess was on leave serving as the Assistant Director for Advanced Manufacturing at the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President of the United States of America. In this position he had responsibility for engaging the Federal sector and the greater scientific community to identify possible areas for policy actions related to manufacturing. He was responsible for coordinating Federal advanced manufacturing R&D, addressing issues related to technology commercialization, identifying gaps in current Federal R&D in advanced manufacturing, and developing strategies to address these gaps. During  2019-2021 he was on leave serving as the Chief Manufacturing Officer and the Founding Director for the Manufacturing Science Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he was responsible for strategic planning in advanced manufacturing.

    Professor Kurfess has served as a special consultant of the United Nations to the Government of Malaysia in the area of applied mechatronics and manufacturing, and as a participating guest at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in their Precision Engineering Program. He has testified in a number of patent cases, including testifying at the International Trade Commission (ITC). He is currently the President of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and also serves on the Board of Governors of ASME. He is the CTO of the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) and serves on its Board of Directors. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM), and on the Board of Trustees of the MT Connect Institute. He served on the Board of Directors for the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) and was the President of SME in 2018. He is an appointed member of the Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, Advisory Committee for Nuclear Security, and an appointed member of the Department of the Navy Science and Technology Board.

    His research focuses on the design and development of advanced systems targeting the automotive sector (OEM and supplier) including vehicle and production systems. He has significant experience in high precision manufacturing and metrology systems. He has received numerous awards including a National Science Foundation (NSF) Young Investigator Award, an NSF Presidential Faculty Fellowship Award, the ASME Pi Tau Sigma Award, SME Young Manufacturing Engineer of the Year Award, the ASME Blackall Machine Tool and Gage Award, the ASME Gustus L. Larson Award, an ASME Swanson Federal Award, and the SME Education Award. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the AAAS, the SME and the ASME.

    kurfess@gatech.edu

    404.385.0959

    Website

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Additive manufacturing
    • Advanced Manufacturing
    • Advanced Materials
    • Advanced Materials Additive Manufacturing
    • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
    • Automotive
    • Precision Machining

    IRI Connections: